Lightning Strikes Twice (Harry Potter)(Time Travel)

A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my Patreon for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!

Surprise Amelia POV!

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Harry had of course told her what was going to happen tonight. Amelia hadn’t been happy about it, truth be told. She would have felt far more comfortable if her Master had a couple dozen Aurors backing him up over Bellatrix fucking Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy of all people.

But at the end of the day, there was nothing for it. Amelia had sworn her life and magic to Harry’s service. She’d allowed him to bind her to him irrevocably and unequivocally, and at the end of the day, she had to obey. Frankly, she was grateful for how much he’d chosen to listen to her advice so far. There was a world where he could easily have turned her into nothing more than his mouthpiece and cock warmer, a lame duck Minister of Magic that existed solely to satisfy his desires and needs… both sexual and otherwise.

He didn’t want her for her body alone though. He didn’t want her just for her submission. Her Master appreciated her for her intellect, her problem solving, and her experience as well.

… On this subject however, he was immovable. It had to be him, and it had to be his way. To be fair, Harry had explained exactly how he expected everything to happen. It had all happened once before for him after all, so all he had to do was take advantage of his foreknowledge and play the Dark Lord like a fiddle.

It was that last part that gave Amelia pause, obviously. While she refused to let her fear of Voldemort keep her from doing her job and standing tall, there was still no denying that she DID fear him. She just didn’t let that fear control her in the same way so many others did. Voldemort was the boogeyman in all of their nightmares, the greatest threat to the Wizarding World since Grindelwald. Hell, even Grindelwald hadn’t left quite so much an impact on Magical Great Britain specifically, given his activities were mostly centered on Mainland Europe.

Voldemort though… during his First Rise, he and his Death Eaters had almost felt inevitable at times. Amelia had lost so many people to those monsters. Family. Friends. Lovers. To know that Harry was going up against all of that tonight with a pair of Death Eaters as his only backup was… nerve wracking for her.

But Amelia could do nothing but trust in her Master. And so here she was, standing among other Ministry Officials waiting for the Third Task of the Triwizard Tournament to come to an end. Of course, they already all knew that Harry had touched the Champion’s Cup and been portkeyed away. They already knew he should have appeared on the stage before them, but didn’t.

Amelia was aware that Dumbledore was quietly panicking, even as the aging Headmaster kept on a brave face and hid his true worry from the crowd of onlookers. If she didn’t know what she did, she likely would have demanded answers by now. In fact, she probably should step up and demand answers all things considered.

However, just before Amelia can do so… there’s a flash as Harry appears on the Champion’s Stage, the Cup in one hand and a dark robed corpse in the other. Amelia watches as he makes it look almost casual, the way he thrusts the corpse forward just right so that it lands with its bald head dangling off of the edge of the stage. Bald, noseless, ghastly complexion… and lifeless red eyes.

Everyone gasps, even as Harry rises to his feet, looking down at the body with nothing but utter contempt. Then, he looks out at the crowd and intones the following words.

“The Dark Lord Voldemort has returned. The Dark Lord Voldemort has been vanquished.”

Bedlam. Absolute bedlam. Everyone freaks out in their own way. Some who are exceptionally faint of heart scream or pass out right there on the spot. Those who are a bit stronger shout for answers in their confusion. Some, likely Gryffindors by and large who are predisposed to blindly taking Harry at his word, throw their hands into the air and cheer his victory.

Harry weathers it all with a confidence beyond his physical years. He positively oozes superiority out of every pore and it takes Amelia to realize that’s not quite just a metaphor. Rather, he’s radiating an aura around himself, an aura of pure magical power. He’d told Amelia what he intended to do. He’d explained his plan to her in such detail that it was difficult for her to find true fault with it. She just hadn’t wanted him to be out there by himself with just Bellatrix and Narcissa as backup.

But hearing Harry talk about draining the magic from every Marked Death Eater that answered Voldemort’s call… using the Dark Lord himself as a conduit… well that was one thing. Seeing and feeling the results of his audacious plan was another entirely.

Ignoring even the Ministry Officials demanding answers from him, Harry turns towards Amelia specifically.

“Minister Bones. You should send some Aurors to collect an unconscious Bartemius Crouch Junior currently resting in a broom closet nearby. I’ll craft a Patronus to direct them.”

Amelia doesn’t question it. Her and Harry’s public relationship might not be as… one to one as their private relationship, but given he’d helped campaign for her and all but singlehandedly gotten her elected with his speeches, everyone knew that the new Minister of Magic and the Boy-Who-Lived were on good terms.

Looking over, Amelia nods to Hestia and Nymphadora. The Head Auror straightens up and is soon followed by her subordinate as the two trail after a bright glowing white stag that Harry wordlessly conjures from the tip of his wand. Of course, there’s a question of whether or not he would even need a wand to perform a Patronus at this point despite the spell’s infamous difficulty…

“Harry, my boy… please, what exactly happened to you?”

Amelia watches as Dumbledore finally finds his words. The wizened old wizard’s reaction to Harry’s pronouncement and Voldemort’s body had been to freeze up and stare with wide eyes at the corpse up until this point. Not very characteristic of him, but truthfully, shock was quite understandable all things considered.

Harry turns his attention to the Headmaster and it’s interesting to see how he interacts with Dumbledore now from the side. It’s not quite confrontational, or at least she doesn’t think it will seem that way to most onlookers. But there’s definitely a certain peer-to-peer attitude there that can’t be mistaken in any way for the headmaster-student relationship that most would likely expect Albus and Harry to have.

“Barty Crouch Jr. attacked me on my way to the Third Task. I assume he intended to transport me to Voldemort for the ritual that the Dark Lord ultimately performed that led to his resurrection. Ultimately, I defeated him and stashed him away, intending to inform someone after the Triwizard Tournament was done. Unfortunately, it seems the Champion’s Cup was a portkey corrupted to take me to Voldemort as a contingency plan.”

It's obvious from the way Dumbledore’s face is contorting into a million different expressions that he wants to say something there. He probably has some very pertinent follow up questions he wants to ask right now. But Harry doesn’t even pause for breath. He keeps going, his voice loud and clear… enough that everyone watching can hear every word out of his mouth.

“From there, the Dark Lord used a combination of ingredients including my blood to perform a dark ritual that allowed him to regain this body. Then, we fought. He considered the outcome of the battle a foregone conclusion… but then so did I.”

Harry looks down at Voldemort’s corpse at those final words. An awed hush has fallen over the crowd at this point. It’s obvious nobody quite knows what to say or do in the wake of his actions. Even Dumbledore looks like he doesn’t know how to react right now, but then that’s probably because of Voldemort’s Horcruxes.

Her Master had explained that part to Amelia as well. How Voldemort’s immortality was tied to a truly horrifying thing called a horcrux. It was made by splitting one’s soul through the ritualistic act of entirely cold-blooded murder and Voldemort hadn’t just made one of them, he’d made several.@@novelbin@@

Dumbledore had been aware of these horcruxes for quite some time according to Harry, but he hadn’t told a single soul. Instead, the Chief Warlock had kept his knowledge to himself. At the very least, he’d purportedly been working on trying to track them all down to be fair, but that would have been cold comfort if something had happened to the aging wizard before he could pass on what he knew and help them gird themselves for what was to come.

Harry, meanwhile, knew where they all were… but had a simpler solution. According to her Master, his plan to drain the magic of every single Death Eater through their connection to Voldemort would also allow him to drain the magic and soul out of every horcrux connected to the Dark Lord as well.

Amelia didn’t know for sure that Harry had succeeded in that last bit. He could just be putting on a confident act right now. She’d find out afterwards she imagined. But even if that part of the plan had failed, he could just hunt down the last horcruxes at his leisure, since he knew where to find them and most importantly of all, he knew what they were.

But Dumbledore didn’t know that. So perhaps the Headmaster was panicking right now, thinking that Voldemort wasn’t truly vanquished and wondering where the Dark Lord’s spirit was after this latest attempt failed. Perhaps he even thought that Harry had been possessed by the Dark Lord. Amelia wouldn’t have thought that possible, but Harry had mentioned it to her as a distinct possibility. There was every chance that Dumbledore would take tonight’s events as proof that Harry was sharing skull space with Voldemort.

None of that mattered much to her though. She had her role and now it was time to play it. Stepping forward, Amelia feels as eyes draw towards her, seeing the Minister of Magic herself finally doing something. She doesn’t let it get to her though, she never has. Instead, smiling a positively vicious smile that actually is in no way faked, Amelia holds her hand out to Harry and lets him take it hesitantly after a moment.

“I speak on behalf of the entire Wizarding World when I say this, Mister Potter. Thank you. From the bottom of all of our hearts, thank you for all that you have done for us.”

Harry lets his confident ‘façade’ crack a little bit to show a bit of the uncertain young man underneath. Of course, that uncertain young man comes with a broad smile, even as he shakes Amelia’s hand and speaks clearly and ‘sincerely’ from the heart.

“My pleasure, Minister.”

It won’t convince everyone, of course. And some of the people who matter the most probably won’t buy it. But in that moment, Amelia knows Harry has captured the hearts and minds of the vast majority of people watching. And not just the people watching right now either, because as Harry and Amelia shake hands over the sprawled corpse of Lord Voldemort, there’s the telltale flash of a magical camera taking their picture. Even Rita’s photographer Bozo had been caught up in the moment for a second there, but at her purposeful nudge, he’d gotten back on track and taken the picture he needed to take.

Tomorrow morning’s copy of the Daily Prophet would have this picture plastered across the front page, along with a glowing article that would only see Harry’s star shining even higher in the eyes of the Wizarding World.

Of course, there was the other side of things. Within the next couple of days, the bodies would start being… discovered. Each and every Death Eater who died in that graveyard was being covertly and carefully transported back to their homes, their workplaces, their beds. It was another possible point of failure that Amelia didn’t like, since it relied on Bellatrix Lestrange to do most of the heavy lifting… but this time around at least, Amelia acknowledged that her Aurors could not have done the job. Not without informational security breaking somewhere in the process and the truth getting out.

No, so long as Bellatrix didn’t get caught, it would seem to all of the Wizarding World as though Voldemort’s ‘true death’ caused the death of the vast majority of his Marked Death Eaters no matter where they were. It would, of course, exonerate individuals like Narcissa Malfoy who were suspected of being Marked. And some like the likes of Severus Snape or Karkaroff still lived as well, shame that it was.

But by and large, they were ready to point the finger at the Dark Marks on the arms of each and every victim, no matter what strata of society they existed in. Amelia had received a tentative list ahead of time from Harry, so there shouldn’t be any nasty surprises… but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still a nasty list of names.

Every level of the Wizarding World, from the nobility to the ministry to the shops where people did their daily shopping. It was all infested with Voldemort’s supporters. It made her sick to her stomach, but at least now… at least now, they’d cleaned house in the best way possible.

Maybe in this moment, in the wake of Voldemort’s second and final defeat… they could finally start recovering and rebuilding for real. No, not maybe. Not could. They had to. Because Voldemort wasn’t the end of the road. He wasn’t the root of all evil. And what came next… they needed to be prepared for above all else.

[X] Switch to Dumbledore POV - 53%